


Fulcrum

by captainraz



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Hallucinations, Identity Issues, Nightmares, Past Lives, Reassociation, coming to terms, missing moment, trekfemslashbigbag2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 07:40:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7631113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainraz/pseuds/captainraz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not anymore what you will become. It is what you are and always will be. John Fowles </i>
</p><p>Ezri is struggling to integrate with the Dax symbiont, putting her life at risk. In desperate need of help, she turns to Lenara Kahn, hoping that somehow closure with her will salvage her joining. With emotions running high and Ezri's control tenuous, they turn to each other for comfort and, together, break all the rules.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fulcrum

Darkness.

Everything is dark. The walls are pressing in. He’s in a tunnel.

He’s trapped, he can’t get out.

There’s blood on his hands. It’s not his, not hers either. Who is he? Which one? It’s so hard to keep them all separate.

A dead body in front of him, the smell of death curling in his nostrils. A knife in his hands, stabbing into the soft flesh between shoulder and throat. No choice, he had had no choice. Bile rises in his throat anyway, followed by a gleeful, hysterical laugh.

He is joined now, they can’t touch him.

He’s running anyway, chest heaving, sweat dripping down his neck. They will try to take it away, he knows that. Because of what he’s done. They don’t understand, he had no choice!

Hands grab at him from the darkness. They’re here!

Anger rises in his chest; anger, disgust, fear and hatred. So much hatred. There’s no escape. They’ll take away everything he’s worked for.

“No!” he cries, desperate now. He fights, his veins buzzing. He can taste blood on his tongue and snarls like a wounded animal.

It’s futile in the end, he’s trapped, dying…

They’ll take it away, no matter how hard he fights. A hypospray hisses, a prick at his neck and he feels like he’s he’s drowning in quicksand. He fights all the way to the end.

Ezri wakes up screaming.

For a moment she’s not entirely sure she _is_ Ezri, she could be so many of them, Jadzia, Curzon, Joran… She shivers as she considers that last one; the dream was definitely his memories, could she still be him? As her pulse calms a flicker of certainty races through her mind and she comes back to herself. Then the orderlies are there, strapping her to the bed, restraining her thrashing so she can’t hurt herself or the precious symbiont in her belly.

Her memory returns and for a blissful moment she knows who and where she is; Ezri Tigan—Dax, now that she’s joined—Starfleet ensign being kept at the Symbiosis Commission while they attempt to stabilise her emergency joining. For a single instance she can remember her mother, her brothers, smell the disinfectant, feel the restraints chafe at her wrists…

Then she’s back on some long-ago battlefield, the taste of blood on her tongue and the sound of men’s dying cries on the air. The orderlies attempting to tie her down are no longer medical professionals who want to help but enemies trying to capture her.

She fights. Curzon fights.

“vubpu’ jonnuchpu’. jonbe’ tlhInganpu’,” she spits. "vubpu’ jonnuchpu’." Only cowards take hostages.

She manages to punch one of her captors in the nose, sending blood gushing everywhere. Ezri whoops in victory, though it is obvious she’s not Ezri any more. Her arms and legs flail violently as she kicks and spits and scratches at anyone who comes near.

“Somebody get a sedative into her,” someone shouts.

“No!” Ezri responds; she refuses to be captured. There is no honour in that and they will not take her alive, they will not.

More burly men with spots down their temples enter the room and she is horribly outnumbered.

She laughs.

“Heghlu’meHQaQjajvam!” Ezri yells as they close in on her.

Then there is the hiss of a hypospray and darkness.

This time when she wakes up it’s daytime and she recognises where she is. Now she’s Jadzia, fighting for her life as her isoboramine levels drop dangerously low.

“Benjamin? Julian?” She calls to the empty room. She wants her friends. She’s a grown woman, a joined Trill, the only candidate to be re-accepted after failing the initiate program, but right now she’d feel a lot better if she could see a friendly face.

Doctor Renhol enters the room and she feels a palpable sense of relief.

“Doctor,” she says, trying to gesture for Renhol’s attention and confused to find her arms and legs retrained. “Have you seen Julian?”

The doctor looks puzzled. “Julian?”

“Doctor Bashir,” she clarifies, “he was with me–” She frowns, suddenly uncertain. Sifting through her memories is harder than usual, and she isn’t entirely sure when anything happened. “–yesterday,” she settles on. “He was with me yesterday.”

This pronouncement earns her an indulgent smile, as though she’s a child who’s done something new and interesting but not particularly praiseworthy. “Doctor Bashir was here with _Jadzia_ ,” says Renhol, and the emphasis on the name strikes her as odd until she remembers that no, she’s not actually Jadzia. “And that was four years ago.”

Ezri blinks in confusion, trying to pull some sort of meaning out of a hundred conflicting memories. Her brain feels like Idanian spice pudding; thick and sweet and absolutely no good for thinking with. “If I’m not Jadzia, then…”

“You’re Ezri, the newest Dax host,” says the doctor gently. “Jadzia died about a month ago, remember?”

She does. The temple. Dukat, his eyes strange. Pain, so much pain. And then Worf, his eyes sad, the last thing she saw.

They were supposed to be having a _baby_.

Ezri retches at the vividness of the sudden memory. Renhol is there with a basin to catch what little comes up, rubbing her back and making soothing noises. “There, there,” she says, and Ezri can’t quite tell if she’s being sarcastic or not. “Its not easy, dealing with memories of a host’s death.”

“You think I’d be used to it by now,” Ezri replies with a dark chuckle. “I’ve done it eight times now.”

“It’s different every time, and this last death was very hard on the Dax symbiont. Normally the initiate programme teaches new hosts how to deal with it but…”

“But I wasn’t an initiate. I was never meant to be joined.” She looks down at her feet, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. “I never wanted this. I wish you’d taken the symbiont out.”

Renhol clicks her tongue. “We would have done had that been an option, but by the time you arrived you’d been joined long enough that removing the symbiont would have killed you. We have to give you a chance to stabilise the joining.”

Ezri knew what the doctor was saying was true; she’d heard it a hundred times already. It didn’t make it any easier to deal with being a joined Trill against her wishes. She’d never really had a choice in the matter, and she still didn’t. It rankles and her helplessness makes everything else that much harder to deal with.

Renhol moves over to the banks of diagnostic machines Ezri is hooked up to and hums to herself as she takes readings.

“Your isoboramine levels are holding steady at sixty seven percent. I think tomorrow we might try raising that to seventy five.”

Ezri nods her agreement, not that she has much choice in this either. The doctors at the Symbiosis Commission are slowly ramping her isoboramine up in the hopes of stabilising the joining. So far the only stable thing about the whole process is the isoboramine itself; everything else is an absolute mess. Renhol presses a hypospray to her neck with the latest dose and then exits the room, leaving Ezri alone with her thoughts and memories.

She dozes.

Her dreams are always uncomfortable these days, tangled up in memories of half a dozen lifetimes. Sometimes they’re downright terrifying. Between the murders Joran committed, the battles Curzon and Jadzia fought and the shuttle crash that killed Torias there’s more than enough material in her past to inspire nightmares. Honestly, she’s begun to prefer it when she wakes up desperately searching for children who aren’t there, children who’ve long since grown up and died themselves. She prefers it to the blood.

This time she’s Torias.

Nilani doesn’t want him to go.

“It’s not ready yet,” she keeps telling him, but he’s the pilot; he knows he can pull this off.

He can see the fear in her eyes every time he goes out to make a few adjustments to the shuttle and he hates that he’s done that to the woman he loves. But he’s a pilot as well as a husband and he knows this ship is ready to fly. Just a few more tweaks, a few more tests… She’s not perfect, he knows that, but all he has to do is get her in the air for a few minutes and bring her down again and he’ll make history.

His fingers itch at the prospect and the call of adventure overrules the nagging suspicion that his wife is right. He decides to take the shuttle on its maiden flight.

One moment everything is going smoothly, his fingers moving confidently over the panel, and the next an alarm is blaring in his ears.

Something’s wrong.

The cabin is filling with smoke and the acrid scent of burning plastic fills his nostrils. He blinks away the water in his eyes and focuses on making his landing as smooth as possible.

He’s losing altitude too quickly, and he can’t get the descent under control.

Nilani was right, the ship wasn’t ready. He should have listened to her and now he’s going to make her a widow.

Flames roar in his ears and his heart races in his chest. His last thoughts aren’t for the symbiont in his belly, the one he’s supposed to look after and put before his own needs, but the woman he’s leaving behind.

“Nilani,” he whispers as the ground rushes up to meet him. “I love you Nilani.”

Ezri wakes just before impact, drenched with sweat and still able to smell burning.

“Nilani,” she calls, pulling at her restraints. “My wife, I have to get to my wife.”

No one is there to listen.

Then her mind catches on another, more recent memory, of Jadzia and Lenara, and she calms. Instead of remembering Torias’s fiery death as his shuttle crashed and burned she recalls soft lips and hushed whispers, warm breath and shaking hands. Promises that what they had was worth throwing it all away if Lenara would just _trust_.

And then she’s crying on the Promenade as the woman she loves, the woman she’s loved for a century, walks through the airlock and out of her life.

Ezri is still crying when someone comes in to persuade her to eat. She refuses, not in the mood for food, so she’s injected with a nutrient supplement and left alone again.

The solitude is good. Memories of eight lifetimes are constantly running around in her head, fighting for dominance. It’s giving her the mother of all headaches. People’s voices go right through her making the pain worse, and she can see auras around everything all the time. Being left alone is easier, it hurts less.

It also makes it more difficult to tell the difference between memories and hallucinations. Especially given she has fairly recent memories of having hallucinations.

The less she thinks about Joran, the better.

Her isoboramine levels remain steady at seventy five percent over the next few days, making her doctors feel relatively optimistic in their prognosis. Ezri even manages to convince them to remove the restraints, which is a relief. While she enjoys the freedom she's not entirely convinced it's a good idea; she spends most of t the next morning convinced she’s Emony and almost breaks her ankle attempting gymnastics moves in her hospital room. Thankfully her doctors are more amused than concerned and the restraints stay off.

(Ezri knows they’ll go straight back on the moment she lashes out though. She’s getting better at schooling her reactions to the dreams and memories. She’s not had a nightmare in a few days, which is in her favour. If only she could sort out her waking hours too.)

“I’m an Olympic athlete,” she says, sitting on the edge of the biobed as her ankle is healed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She’s annoyed with herself for not sticking that landing.

“ _Emony_ was an Olympic athlete,” says Renhol, turning the dermal regenerative off. “You’re trainee counsellor.”

“Oh.” Now that she thinks about it she does feel a little bit short to be Emony.

“It’s a good job you’re fresh out of the academy though. If your fitness level were any lower you might have done yourself some serious damage.”

“How is it?” Ezri asks, concerned. Physical injuries could cause her problems once she gets out of here. ( _If_ she gets out of here, says a nasty little voice in the back of her head that sounds like Joran.)

“All healed,” says Renhol. “Try to be more careful next time.”

Ezri makes a non-committal noise in her throat; she can’t really make any promises when she doesn’t know who she’s going to be at any given moment.

Case in point, her identity shifts again as soon as Renhol is out of the room, the stale smell of recycled air heralding the start of another flashback. At least this one’s pleasant.

She’s kissing someone. Lips warm against hers, pleasant hum in the back of a throat, she can’t tell if it’s hers or the person’s she’s kissing. Slender fingers are tangled in her long hair and there’s an urgency to this embrace they hasn’t been there before.

“We shouldn’t,” says Lenara, pulling her mouth away from Jadzia’s long enough to get the words out. She notices that Lenara’s lips are red, and the sight sends a bolt of arousal down Jadzia’s spine, and she takes a moment to appreciate the fact she did that before bending down to attack her neck.

Lenara groans and pulls Jadzia closer, undoing the words that have just left her mouth. Jadzia is only too happy to oblige and several long moments are dedicated to worshipping the curve of Lenara’s throat and counting the spots on her shoulder with her tongue.

Jadzia’s fingers ghost over Lenara’s breasts and she pulls back, seeking permission. She will go no further without her partner’s explicit say so.

“We shouldn’t,” Lenara repeats but her voice wavers just a little; she’s less certain now. And her hands have not left their place on Jadzia’s hips.

“To hell with ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’,” Jadzia says vehemently. “You and I both know how fragile life can be, we might not get another chance at this.”

She’s looking Lenara dead in the eye, watching the various emotions flicker across her face. She’s uncertain, Jadzia can see that much, but she won’t press any further. Lenara has to want it too for this to go any further. Her brows twitch and crease and then even out; she seems to come to a conclusion.

Her breath is hot against Jadzia’s lips as she leans in, brushing her own lips against Jadzia’s face ever so gently. Jadzia stays completely still apart from the trembling that has started in her limbs. She wants this woman so much it hurts but they have to make this leap together.

“Kiss me again,” she says, pleading, and Jadzia is weak against that tone of voice. She presses her mouth hungrily to Lenara’s.

“Are you sure?” she asks between kisses. There’s a heat building between them now and Jadzia knows she will only be able to control it a little while longer before it rages completely out of control, burning them both to ashes.

“Don’t stop,” Lenara says, so she doesn’t.

In the end they barely make it to the bed.

Clothes fall away easily or are ripped off in their haste to get at more skin. Jadzia loses a uniform shirt but she can’t bring herself to care, not when her mouth is full of Lenara’s exquisite breasts and Lenara is making needy little mewls with every suckle.

It’s not enough, it will never be enough. Not when this need has burned unchecked for a century. They devour one another.

When Ezri comes back to the present she is trembling, limbs twitching with an arousal that isn’t hers. Her blood roars in her ears, heart hammering harder than it had after she’d just completed a complicated gymnastics routine. She can still taste the sweat on her tongue and smell their combined arousal. Her chest aches and for the first time since her joining her mind is her own, united in one single thought; she has to find Lenara.

All of the love Torias had for Nilani, the regret he felt for making her a widow crashes into Jadzia’s feelings for Lenara, all the want and need and hurt as she walked away. That night of lovemaking was the only time they had together and Ezri treasures it. Not Torias, not Jadzia, _Ezri_ , because Lenara took a chance and something wonderful came out of it, however briefly.

She needs to take a chance now. She needs to find Lenara. Torias needs it; Jadzia needs it. But above all else Ezri needs it.

It’s not rational in the slightest but somehow she knows if she finds Lenara everything will be alright. Two of her previous hosts are screaming at her to find this woman, and for once there is no dissenting voice among the multitude, not even from Joran. She isn’t sure what Lenara can do—or even if she’ll speak to Ezri—but she has to try.

Her isoboramine levels might be stable but unless she can get the memories of her previous hosts under control she is still at risk of rejecting the symbiont. She might never have wanted this but she is a joined Trill now and Ezri very much does not want to spend the rest of her life in this hospital room. So she’ll find Lenara and hope that somehow, miraculously, a bit of closure with her will stabilise the join.

It’s a long shot, but no one else has any especially brilliant ideas. “Fortune favours the bold,” Benjamin once said. He was right that time, perhaps the saying would hold true again.

Ezri isn’t a prisoner here at the Symbiosis Commission, but neither is she exactly free to come and go as she pleases. The restraints are for her own protection (and safeguarding the noses of the people who have to attend her) but there’s every chance the commission will be willing to use them to keep her here against her wishes. She hasn’t forgotten the lengths they were willing to go to in order to keep Joran secret.

She waits for night time, when she’s only disturbed if she gets violent. With Jadzia’s military experience, Curzon’s ability to sneak around after curfew and Joran’s… less than savoury ability to avoid detection, it’s not that difficult to make her escape. She manages to locate her personal effects, grateful that someone thought to pack some casual clothes for her. Tobin and his engineering skills are responsible for the fact she’s able to short circuit the door mechanism in record time and then she’s out in the cool night air, her own person for the first time in weeks.

Ezri didn’t grow up on Trill and for a moment everything is unfamiliar to her. But her other hosts _did_ grow up here and suddenly she knows where she’s going; there are a couple of bars down the street (thanks Curzon) where she might be able to find out what she needs.

(She could break into the Trill Science Ministry to get what she wants but that seems more hassle than its worth and would probably see her back in the Symbiosis Commission by morning. Besides, she’s not sure how to get there without calling for a hovercar. All she really needs is access to a few planetary databases and she’s set.)

She pops into the first bar she sees, doing her best to mask her anxiety. Ezri is very much not a nightlife kind of person and is horribly out of her element in the sort of establishment that opens as late as this. Tobin is practically hyperventilating at just the idea of going in.

It’s no worse than Quark’s on any given evening so Ezri lets her inner Jadzia take over, keeping Curzon nearby in case things turn ugly. Not that Jadzia wasn’t able to take care of herself.

“What can I do for you miss?” asks the bartender almost as soon as Ezri’s foot is inside the door. She smiles at him, hoping it’s more confident than nervous and approaches.

“Depends, you got a computer terminal I can borrow?” she says lowering her eyelids just enough to be sultry; Jadzia knew that sometimes the old ways were the best ways of getting what you want.

The man jerks a thumb towards the back room. “In there. You’re not in any trouble are ya miss?”

 _Not yet_ , she thinks, though she probably will be when her little vanishing act is discovered. “No, nothing like that,” she says. “Lost the padd I had with my friend's address on is all.” She heads for the room the bartender had indicated and ignores the fact every single man in the bar is regarding her speculatively as she passes them.

With a working computer terminal in her hands it doesn’t take long to track down the information she needs. The security protocols on the Science Ministry database aren’t even all that good; Ezri blasts through them with very little help from her previous hosts. Armed with the knowledge she was seeking she heads back out into the bar.

“Could you call a hovercar for me?” she asks of the bartender. He gives a grunt that Ezri can’t quite interpret as a yes or a no.

“I could give you a lift, miss,” says a Trill who sways a little as he stands up.

Eight lifetimes’ worth of instincts are suddenly on high alert.

“Thanks, but I’m okay taking a hovercar.” Ezri smiles at the man, hoping politeness will defuse the situation. Experience tells her it doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a shot. She can always break his nose later.

The smile turns into a leer and he licks his lips. Ezri wants to vomit. “Come on miss, you wouldn’t have come into a place like this if you weren’t looking for some fun. Let me take you home.”

A flash of memory from Curzon tells her the clientele of this place has always skewed alarmingly male and boorish. Probably why he liked it. Ezri tenses, getting ready for a fight if necessary.

“No thank you,” she says firmly, hoping against hope that this asshole understands the meaning of the word.

It turns out he doesn’t.

In a flash his expression turns nasty as he snarls. “Fucking frigid bitch, do you think you’re too good for the likes of me?” He clambers off his barstool, swaying unsteadily as his feet hit the floor, and advances.

None of the other men in the bar say anything. None of them move a muscle. Cowards. Bastards.

The drunken asshole reaches out to grab Ezri, planning goodness knows what for the frigid bitch who’s turned him down. Ezri is small, delicate looking, and people are always underestimating her. This guy is no different.

She snaps into action, turning his attack away and using his arm to flip him over. One moment he’s standing and the next he’s face down on the floor with his arm twisted up behind him. He looks completely bewildered by what’s just happened.

“I’ll take a hovercar thanks,” Ezri hisses in his ear loud enough for everyone in the now silent bar to hear her. The barman rushes off to call her ride for her, something he should have done in the first place.

Ezri leaves her assailant on the floor, pressing her foot into his lower back to keep him there. Leaning against the bar she orders herself a drink; some Trill brandy she remembers both Curzon and Lela being fond of. She downs the shot in one gulp—it tastes absolutely vile—making sure her face stays completely neutral.

When her hovercar arrives she strides confidently out of the bar, fully intending to never set foot in it ever again. Only when she’s safely ensconced in the squishy seat of the hovercar dos she realise that what just happened was all her, Ezri. It wasn’t Jadzia or Curzon or Joran or any of the previous Daxes that put that man on the floor, it was little Ezri Tigan and her Academy self defence classes.

That thought comforts and delights her in equal measure.

Before she can even really think about it the hovercar is pulling up outside Lenara’s house. Ezri’s heart starts beating ten to the dozen. He palms feel sweaty and there’s an unsteady sick feeling in her stomach. For the first time she wonders if this really is the best course of action, if speaking with Lenara might actually help her stabilising the join with the Dax symbiont.

The alternative is simply to go back to the Symbiosis Commission and let them continue doing what they were doing in the hopes that it will work. Ezri is done lying there idle; she has to do _something_.

Even if it is as ill-advised as turning up to an ex’s front door in the middle of the night.

Swallowing her doubts and worry, Ezri rings the doorcomm. Everything is silent for a few long minutes after that and Ezri’s resolve is stretched almost to breaking point. She tells herself it is only to be expected that Lenara would take a long time to answer the door given that its the middle of the night and sensible people are asleep. The voice of doubt creeping up the back of her neck whispers that Lenara might not even be in; she could be out, at a lovers or even off-planet with work. Somehow Ezri silences that voice and carries on standing there.

Eventually a light goes on inside the building and Ezri’s knees almost give way with relief. The door opens and then she’s there, Lenara Kahn in the flesh, and a sight for sore eyes. Ezri’s heart lurches in her chest as both Torias and Jadzia ache for their lost loves.

Lenara blinks sleepily at Ezri, looking utterly confused. “Yes?” she says. “Can I help you?”

Ezri’s voice freezes in her throat. She’s thought of a hundred different things she could say at this moment, a hundred different ways this cold go but now that she’s actually here nothing will come out. Lenara looks angry for a moment and then she says, “well, if you’re not going to say anything I’m going back to bed.” The door starts to close and Ezri panics.

“No!” she blurts, “don’t go. It’s me, it’s Dax.”

Lenara looks confused and then a look of dawning understanding crosses her face. “Dax?” she whispers so quietly Ezri barely hears her. She nods in reply. “Jadzia?” Lenara says, a note of reckless hope in her voice.

Ezri shakes her head sadly, remembering a bolt of red energy and lots of pain. “Jadzia died a month or so ago. I’m Ezri.”

Lenara’s knees buckle as she cries out and Ezri moves to catch her before she manages to right herself. The door frame is the only thing keeping Lenara steady. “I swore off Daxes after last time but I think you’d better come in. I have to know…”

Ezri follows Lenara into a plushly appointed home. It’s all on a single level and the house has everything one might need to be comfortable. It is also very much the home of a brilliant scientist; padds litter almost every available surface and the walls are decorated with abstract art representing various scientific discoveries and revelations. Once in the living room Lenara gestures at a soft looking couch and Ezri sits down gratefully.

There is a haunted look on Lenara’s face that Ezri is certain has nothing to do with the lateness of the hour and a night of disturbed sleep and everything to do with the fact she’s just found out about Jadzia’s premature death. Struggling to find the words to broach the subject, Ezri remains quiet while Lenara performs her hostess duties and offers her a hot drink. She requests a Tarkelian tea, remembering how Julian favours the blend, while Lenara fetches herself an Earth coffee. Only when they’re both seated awkwardly in the living room does Ezri try to speak.

She fumbles with the words before they’re even halfway out of her mouth.

“I–”

“How did Jadzia die?” says Lenara suddenly, looking Ezri directly in the eye. Memory flashes through her mind, intense as the day it happened, and for a moment Ezri can hardly speak.

“She was murdered,” says Ezri, somehow getting the words past the lump in her throat. She remembers lying on the floor of the Bajoran temple, remembers Odo finding her, remembers the stricken look on Benjamin’s face when he came to find her. “She– I–”

“It’s okay,” says Lenara, even though Ezri should be the one comforting her; she’s the one who’s just lost somebody she loved (or perhaps still loves). Ezri’s just the one who carries the memories.

Red eyes, unnatural. Something wrong with him, more than usual. How did he even get on the station anyway?

“I just– it wasn’t a good death,” Ezri manages at last. “The symbiont nearly didn’t make it.” Lenara looks suitably aghast at this; the first thing drilled into each and every initiate is the importance of the symbiont continuing in the program no matter the cost to the host, Ezri knows that from the eight previous lifetimes when she went through the program. “I– I don’t know how to deal with this,” she says, hoping Lenara will understand. “Any of it.”

She tilts her head to one side, looking at Ezri with a quizzical expression on her face. “You weren’t in the initiate program were you?” Ezri shakes her head. “Then… how did you end up with the Dax symbiont?”

Ezri opens her mouth to explain and somehow the entire story ends up falling out, every bit of it. How Jadzia died, how the symbiont was on its way back to Trill to be prepared for joining when something went wrong. How she was the only Trill on the ship and so they _had_ to attempt an emergency joining or risk losing a three hundred year old symbiont. How she’s been stuck at the Symbiosis Commission ever since while they try to save the joining and with it, her life.

By the time she’s done Lenara has silent tears running down her face. “No wonder you don’t know how to deal with any of this. My joining—all of my joinings—were strange enough to deal with and I’d had years of training and preparation. To be joined without any of that, when it was never something you wanted… I can’t even begin to imagine.”

Ezri just shrugs and drinks her tea. Every joined Trill she’s encountered since she got the Dax symbiont has said something similar, and it’s true; none of them really know what she’s going through. For all she knows she’s the only person in Trill history to go through this.

“I don’t know what you think I can do to help you though,” says Lenara, a sad expression stealing over her face.

“Neither do I if I’m honest,” Ezri says. “But I couldn’t stay at the Commission any longer and well, two of my previous hosts were in love with you, trusted you, and I guess I somehow thought if I could get some closure for them that would be two past lives I wouldn’t have to fight against. I’m babbling aren’t I?”

“A little,” says Lenara with an indulgent smile. Ezri suddenly remembers how much older than her she is, the host at any rate; she feels like a little kid by comparison. “Is that an inherited Dax trait or is that an Ezri trait?”

“That’s all me. It’s gotten worse since the joining though.” She sighs, letting out hours of pent up stress and anxiety. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, I don’t know what I was thinking coming here unanounced in the middle of the night. I can leave you be if you want, I’ll just call a hovercar and go back to the Commission.”

“No,” says Lenara sharply and she looks surprised at herself, as though she hadn’t meant to say that at all. “I mean… you can stay, if you like. I’d like that.”

Ezri smiles then, immeasurably relieved that she doesn't have to return to whitewashed walls and biobeds and restraints, at least not tonight. “Thank you,” she says, trying to inject as much sincerity as she can into her words. She is so profoundly grateful to this woman for being willing to trust her, to put herself out for someone who is almost a complete stranger that she barely has words for it. Lenara seems to understand.

“Come on then,” she says, “I don't know about you but I’m absolutely exhausted, and I could do with a few more hours sleep.”

Ezri nods, trying to hold back the yawn that’s suddenly trying to take over her face.

Lenara sets Ezri up in her own room, despite protests, choosing to sleep on the sofa instead. She waves away Ezri’s objections saying simply “I remember how hard the beds are at the Commission, you’ve probably not had a good night’s sleep since you were joined.”

She’s right, but Ezri doesn’t want to point out that her lack of sleep is as much to do with the nightmares as it is the uncomfortable bed she’d been assigned. Still, she’s grateful for whatever comfort she can get and she’s asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow.

For the first time since she was joined, Ezri sleeps through until morning without a single nightmare and wakes up refreshed. As she wakes up to a sunlit room she remembers vivid dream-memories about laughing children and weddings and flying spacecraft; nothing terrifying, nothing bloody.

She drags herself out of bed when she smells breakfast—something familiar that prods at her mind and her memory. Lenara is in the kitchen, making coffee, breakfast is already replicated and on the table. There’s a lot of it.

“Morning,” she says when she sees Ezri. “Sleep well?”

“Better than I have in weeks, thank you.” She smiles, trying to convey her gratitude to Lenara for letting her stay. “What’s all this?” she says, gesturing at the table.

“I wasn’t sure what you might want so I replicated a bit of everything.”

She’s not wrong. The table is heaving under the weight of all the dishes and Ezri recognises Earth and Bajoran cuisine in addition to the Trill breakfast staples. There’s no Klingon food though, she notices, for which she is profoundly grateful.

“It all looks great,” Ezri says. “Thanks Nilani.”

Her breakfast companion looks a little sick at that, but them both sit down and tuck into their meal. It isn’t until Ezri is halfway through a plate of eggs and accidentally calling her Nilani for the fourth time that Lenara snaps.

“My name is Lenara!” she shouts. “Nilani is dead.”

For a moment Ezri’s heart feels like it’s dropped through her stomach and she thinks _my wife is dead?_ before she remembers that she’s not Torias and the woman in front of her really isn’t Nilani; they’ve both been dead for years.

“I’m so sorry,”Ezri manages to get out, feeling horribly guilty for making Lenara look as sad as she does right now. “I– sometimes it’s hard for me to tell which one I am and I smelled breakfast and I guess I just slipped into being Torias.”

Lenara is breathing heavily and her eyes look wet, but she seems to have gotten her emotions back under control. “No, it’s alright,” she says hoarsely, and Ezri can tell she was mere seconds away from tears. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have shouted. It’s just– I had to live as Nilani for a long time after Torias died and in some ways it still hurts. It probably always will.”

The guilt festering in Ezri’s gut intensifies and she pushes away her food, no longer hungry. She can’t quite control her own emotions and tears spill down her face. “I keep dreaming about the crash that killed Torias. It’s one of the worse nightmares I keep having. Jadzia’s death still hurts too.”

“I can imagine,” says Lenara, blinking away the tears. “I am sorry, I shouldn’t have been so short with you. This is… it’s hard enough for you as it is without me snapping at you for using the wrong name.”

Neither of them feel much like eating after that and they end up recycling the remains of breakfast. After washing and getting dressed Ezri feels at a loss; she’s not sure what she should do today, whether Lenara has to go into work or not. It would be awkward for her to hang around in Lenara’s house all day on her own but she’s not sure what else she can do besides go back to the Commission building, and she wants to avoid doing that as long as she possibly can.

Lenara answers the question before Ezri can ask. “I’ve told my colleagues I won’t be going into the Science Ministry for a few days,” she says, leaning against the door frame of Ezri’s (her own really) bedroom.

“Don’t you have research to be working on?” Ezri asks, feeling bad that she has invited herself into Lenara’s life and upended everything.

“We do, but they’ll manage without me for a bit. We have to stabilise your memories if we can don’t we?”

Ezri nodded. “Got any ideas? Because apart from pumping me full of isoboramine the Symbiosis Commission sure didn’t.”

“I might have a few ideas,” Lenara says with a smile. “Follow me.”

They settle in the living room where Lenara explains she knows a few old techniques for helping newly joined Trill acclimate to the symbiont and its memories. “They’re not used as often any more,” she says. “The Commission prefers medical and chemical intervention to old fashioned meditative techniques, but I’ve found they often help me when I’m struggling with the memories of previous hosts. One of your previous hosts probably knows of them already.”

Ezri closes her eyes (she finds it easier to concentrate with them shut) and sorts through the memories of her past lives to find what she’s looking for. Audrid and Lela worked with some of the techniques Lenara is talking about and they suddenly feel familiar to her, fresh as the day she first learned them.

“Yeah, a couple of my hosts did meditative techniques after they were joined,” she says. “I hope they help.”

For the next few hours Ezri sits through a dozen different breathing exercises, several different sorts of meditation and a couple of different techniques for sorting and stabilising memories. Even though she’s used these techniques before they’re not easy to get into again; neither Audrid or Lela had used them in Ezri’s particular circumstance and it turns out that a couple of years of initiate training helped them both immeasurably in the immediate aftermath of their joinings.

Ezri does her best but she gets frustrated easily, growling low in her throat every time she makes a mistake. Fortunately Lenara is a scientist, well used to repeating an experiment multiple times and waiting patiently for results and guides Ezri through her irritation.

(Despite this Ezri never once feels like she’s an experiment herself; Lenara treats her as a person at all times, respecting her limits and boundaries and never pushing further than Ezri can handle being pushed. Which is more than can be said for the Symbiosis Commission.)

Whenever her inner Joran threatens to rear his ugly head (and how Lenara can recognise that happening Ezri will probably never know) she soothes the anger by talking about Torias or Jadzia; good, happy memories that Ezri can focus on to settle herself.

They occasionally get distracted by their reminiscing and before they know it it is mid-afternoon.

Lenara calls a break for lunch and then they’re back at it, working through the exercises again. The second time around Ezri finds them a bit easier, and even though she doesn’t need the distraction as much, the two women find themselves talking more and more about their pasts.

As they exchange stories about their previous lives Ezri finds herself relaxing. Lenara is wonderful company; witty and warm and intelligent. She can see why Jadzia fell in love with her. And talking with Lenara about her past lives seems to help Ezri sort through her own troubling memories. Is it something about the woman she’s with or could the Symbiosis Commission have helped her more if they just _talked_ to her? It’s possible she'll never know.

That night Lenara invites Ezri to stay again and though she offers to take the sofa Ezri is once again installed in Lenara’s bedroom. It smells like Lenara and somehow that comforts Ezri as she drifts off to sleep.

She is not so lucky with her dreams this time.

He’s surrounded by flames, choking on the thick smoke that fills the shuttle’s cockpit. He can’t think, can’t focus on the controls when breathing is so hard. He’s dead, he knows that, but still he fights, trying to right the shuttle, trying to smooth out the landing so he might have a chance at surviving.

He has to get back to his wife; he has to get back to Nilani. That’s the only thing that matters.

The alarm blares in his ears, making his head throb. Breathing hurts, thinking hurts and he can’t seem to keep his eyes open. The ground rushes towards him, faster than it should.

There’s a loud bang, the sound of buckling and shearing metal and he’s thrown from his chair. He breaks on impact, bones cracking and crunching under the force.

When he coughs there is blood on his lips. Something jagged and hot and metal is sticking into his ribs and the edges of his vision are going black. He fights, because Daxes have always been fighters in their own way, but there’s nothing he can do.

Nilani’s name is on his lips as he dies.

He’ll never see his wife again.

Ezri wakes up screaming. “Nilani!” she yells, terrified. “Nilani.” Her voice is hoarse, as though it is burning from the smoke she can still taste. She fights against the covers, tangling herself up in her panic.

“Nilani,” she screams again, and then there’s someone there with her.

“Ezri!” Lenara shouts, trying to stop her thrashing. “Ezri, you’re okay. You’re alright.”

“No!” Ezri shouts back, still fighting. She’ll never be okay again.

Lenara just holds on to her, pulling her close and pinning her arms against her side. She runs a hand over Ezri’s sweat slicked brow, making soothing noises. The panic subsides and Ezri’s thrashing grows less and less. Her heart is still pounding though; she can still taste blood in her throat and something within her is screaming at her to find Nilani, but she has control over herself again.

She knows who she is.

“I’m alright,” she tries to tell Lenara, even though she really isn’t. Now that she’s not fighting so hard she realises she’d crying, great heaving sobs that shake her chest and make her heart ache. Tears run down her face, soaking into Lenara’s night shirt where her face is pressed into her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she sobs.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” says Lenara, rocking Ezri backwards and forwards. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Ezri shakes her head but starts telling Lenara about her dream anyway.

“I keep dreaming about Torias’s shuttle crash. His memories are so strong in those last few moments that I can feel his panic, feel his fear. I choke on smoke from fires that he can’t get under control . The flight controls are shot, the fire suppression system inoperable. He’s fighting so hard to get the shuttle down safely so he can get back to Nilani but he can’t. He never gets to see his wife again but he’s thinking about her even as his life slips away…” She buries her face in Lenara’s shoulder, voice breaking completely.

“I remember when they came to tell me what had happened,” she says, and Ezri can tell that Lenara is crying too. “My knees gave way in the doorway; I didn’t even need them to say anything, could tell from the looks on their faces that the worst had happened. I _told_ him not to fly that ship but he wouldn’t listen… he never did when it came to his damn ships.” Ezri looks up at her as Lenara licks her lips, trying to get the words out, for both their sakes. “It never stopped hurting you know? Nilani never loved anyone else like she loved Torias and believe me she tried. He was a good man, and the only one for her.”

“I’m sorry,” Ezri says in a tiny voice. She feels so much guilt she thinks she might burst.

“It’s not your fault,” says Lenara, giving her a sharp look. “You didn’t decide to fly that shuttle, Torias did. None of us are responsible for our previous hosts' decisions. That’s possibly the hardest lesson any initiate has to learn, and you never really understand until after you’re joined.”

Ezri nods, swallowing thickly. She knows Lenara is right, knows that she’s no more responsible for Torias’s decision as she is Jadzia’s or Emony’s or any of them. But she’s the one who has to carry the memories now, and that’s hard.

“I know,” she says when her limbs finally stop shaking, the remnants of the dream fading from her mind completely. “I just wish I didn’t have to keep going through it again and again though. It makes it hard to live with.”

Lenara doesn’t say anything for a long time. Her gaze is fixed on a spot on her bedroom wall, and Ezri knows she’s lost in memories of her own. Or Nilani’s. Ezri is practically asleep when Lenara speaks again.

“I should let you get some rest,” she murmurs into Ezri’s hair.

Panic grips Ezri and she clings to Lenara like she’s a lifeline. “Don’t leave me,” she says, unable to keep the desperation out of her voice. " I don’t want to be alone in case the nightmares come back…" She knows she sounds pathetic, knows she’s asking too much of Lenara even given their history, but she can’t help herself; the idea of trying to sleep without someone there to help her through any further nightmares is terrifying.

“I’ll be here,” says Lenara after only a moment’s hesitation.

Relief floods through Ezri at those words, and it must show on her face because Lenara presses a kiss to her spotted temple.

“Thank you,” Ezri says and Lenara just smiles at her.

They rearrange themselves so they’re lying down but they stay pressed together, Lenara wrapped around Ezri from behind. She feels safe, safer than she has in a long time.

When Lenara whispers “sleep” into her ear she can’t do anything but obey. Ezri falls asleep with a smile on her face.

She wakes up wrapped around a warm body, with her face pressed in someone’s hair and a hand gently cupping a breast. Fractured memories slot back together and she remembers the identity of her slumbering bed companion.

Lenara.

She inhales deeply and sighs with contentment, snuggling even closer to the woman in her arms. This is where she’s meant to be; no matter what the Symbiosis Commission might have to say about Reassociation, she doesn’t care. She’ll go to the ends of the universe for this woman. She’s worth it.

Lenara turns, still fast asleep, and rests her head on her shoulder. She thinks her heart might break from happiness. They’ve not had long together but already she knows this is it. Surely she can never love anyone as much as she loves Lenara.

Gently, almost reverentially, she brushes Lenara’s hair out of her face, unable to keep the smile off her face as she does so. The day cycle is starting up and as much as she might like to stay in bed all day, they have to get up. They do both still have jobs to do.

“Hey, Lenara,” she says, whispering so as not to jolt her out of sleep too quickly. “Come on sleepyhead, we have to get up before Kira starts shouting at us.”

She bends down to brush a kiss to Lenara’s temple.

Lenara finally opens her eyes, smiling and then the happiness on her face is replaced by confusion. She blinks away the last vestiges of sleep and says, “Ezri?”

Ezri comes back to herself with an unpleasant jolt. She’s not Jadzia and they’re not on DS9. They’re in Lenara’s bed in her home on Trill, and the only reason Lenara is in her arms is because she had a nightmare and Lenara came to comfort her.

She feels her cheeks grow hot with embarrassment but she can’t quite bring herself to pull away yet. There’s still that pull, that attraction to Lenara that Jadzia had felt. It wouldn’t take much, all she has to do is lean in slightly and she can find out what Lenara’s lips taste like on Ezri’s tongue. And she wants to. She wants it so badly it almost hurts.

Lenara clears her throat and looks away. Ezri realises that she was moving in for a kiss without quite realising it. She pulls back far too quickly and overbalances, falling out of bed in the process.

At least it breaks the mood.

“Sorry,” she says, mumbling down at the floor. She can’t bring herself to meet Lenara’s gaze. “I wasn’t myself for a minute there, I thought I was–”

“Jadzia, I know,” Lenara says, interrupting. Her voice is more high pitched than usual and Ezri knows she’s embarrassed her. “I remember that morning well.”

“Yeah, me too,” Ezri replies, glum now. She also remembers Lenara walking away, choosing to put her symbiont before any happiness she might have had with Jadzia. She still feels the heartbreak Jadzia had had to work through.

The pulse of want still throbs through her body but she does her best to push it down. She will only end up with a broken heart. This woman will always break her heart.

“I should… Breakfast,” Lenara says and leaps out of bed, retreating into the bathroom before Ezri can say anything else.

 _Great,_ Ezri thinks, _now I’ve embarrassed her._

It doesn’t occur to her until later that Lenara didn’t actually pull away from her.

_I suppose we could throw ourselves at each other, profess our undying love for each other in complete disregard for Trill society._

They could have thrown themselves at each other, so very nearly had. And still might. Ezri couldn’t convince herself she didn’t want it. She shouldn’t want it, but her heart had never been a particularly sensible organ, not in nine lifetimes and it wasn’t about to start now.

She wanted Lenara, that much she knew, and perhaps Lenara wanted her too; it didn’t matter. They still had to work together to stabilise Ezri’s joining.

They could start by getting through breakfast. They could manage that much, couldn’t they?

Somehow Ezri manages not to die of embarrassment over breakfast. Lenara seems to want to pretend that nothing happened and Ezri is more than happy to go along with the charade. Technically nothing did happen, though Ezri knows she’s fooling herself with that thought.

Lenara takes Ezri through the meditative practices and breathing exercises again, this time adding in some more complex and advanced techniques. They seem to be helping. For the most part Ezri has a handle on who she is during the day. The headaches and auras are subsiding and she’s not had a hallucination since she arrived.

It’s just when she’s asleep and in the first few moments after she wakes that she’s struggling to keep her personalities in order.

At least Joran hasn’t made an appearance in a while; being with Lenara seems to be bringing out Torias and Jadzia more than anyone else and, although that brings its own problems, Ezri would rather have that than the alternative.

Ezri thinks she would be quite happy to stay here for a very long time, working on her breathing and managing her memories while Lenara discusses her work, her family, and the life Nilani had with Torias with her.

Sadly it’s not to be for long.

Sometime in mid-afternoon Lenara logs on to the holonet to catch up with her science journals, leaving Ezri to continue meditating on her own. When she comes back her face is pale and she looks troubled.

“Something wrong?” Ezri asks, her brow furrowing in concern.

“They’re looking for you,” Lenara say simply, and Ezri knows exactly who she’s talking about.

The Symbiosis Commission.

Well, she expected this sooner or later. She has a very old, very valuable symbiont in her belly, one that the Symbiosis Commission is desperate not to lose. No doubt they’re worried about what will happen to Dax if Ezri rejects the symbiont when she’s not under the Commission’s watchful eye.

All she manages to say out loud though is, “oh.”

“Oh? That’s all you have to say? The Symbiosis Commission has put out a planet wide alert on you and the only thing you have to say is ‘oh’?” Lenara’s voice is shaking slightly; she’s rattled. No doubt terrified about her own symbiont’s place in the joining program if she gets caught harbouring a wanted fugitive.

Ezri shrugs, even though she knows that won’t help calm Lenara’s fears. “I knew they’d go looking for me when I decided to sneak out of the Commission building. Hopefully they won’t think to look for me here.”

“Hopefully?” Lenara doesn’t sound anywhere near as casual about this as Ezri is.

They are silent for a while, staring each other down. Ezri wonders if Lenara will turn her in. She knows she’s more trouble than she’s worth and Lenara would be well within her rights to throw her out and be done with her—and with Daxes—forever.

By the look on her face Lenara is seriously considering it.

“What are you going to do?” Ezri asks quietly, nervous. “Are you going to turn me in?”

“I should. I should have turned you away the moment I saw you standing on my doorstep but… I just had to know what had happened to Jadzia.” Lenara sounds utterly miserable. “That need overrode my good sense.”

“And now?” Ezri can barely breathe. There’s an urgent sensation in her gut (somewhere around where Dax is nestled) that is telling her that the Symbiosis Commission might be the best place for her but she doesn’t _want_ to go back.

She wants to stay here. With Lenara.

Lenara’s shoulders slump in defeat. “I’m not going to send you away.” She laughs, but the sound is bitter, completely devoid of mirth. “It would be easier for me if you did go back, but you need help. I can’t send you away.”

Profound gratitude washes over Ezri, and she doesn’t have the words to express it. She just smiles, and they go back to their days.

By the time night falls Ezri is exhausted. The exercises she’s been doing require huge amounts of concentration and it’s sapped her of all her energy. And yet she doesn’t want to sleep.

Despite the fact she’s clearly falling over where she stands, Ezri refuses to go to bed. Bed means sleep and sleep means nightmares. She slept well last night, in Lenara’s arms, but only after she’d woken up screaming. It’s not enough to make up for all the sleepless nights she’s had since her joining, not enough for her to be fully rested.

She’s reticent, and Lenara can sense it. She calls Ezri on it.

“Ezri, you’re practically falling out of your chair. Why don’t you go to bed?” Her voice is gentle, kind, but there’s an undercurrent of steel; Lenara won’t shy away from forcing Ezri to sleep if she has to.

“I don’t want to,” Ezri says, mumbling the words. She’s barely coherent. “I’m afraid I’ll have another nightmare. I don’t– I– the only time I’ve slept well is last night, with you.” Her cheeks heat up again and she forces herself to continue. “I don’t want to presume but… will you sit with me? For a little while?”

It’s a terrible idea, given what almost happened this morning, but Ezri ran out of sensible ideas a while ago. She just wants to get some rest, and she knows she’ll only get that if Lenara is there. There’s something about Lenara that seems to calm Ezri or Dax, or both, and makes everything easier.

Lenara looks unsure, like she’s as aware it’s a bad idea as Ezri is, but she agrees anyway.

Ezri climbs into bed and Lenara sits next to her, propped up against the pillows. Instinctively Ezri curls against Lenara, pressing close to her leg, and Lenara doesn’t object.

They’re both tense, as though they’re bracing for impact, and Ezri knows they need to address what happened that morning or no one is getting any rest.

“I’m sorry about this morning,” she says into Lenara’s thigh. “I didn’t mean to make things awkward.”

“You didn’t–” Lenara cuts herself off, obviously as aware as Ezri is that things _were_ awkward after their… moment this morning. “It’s okay,” she finishes softly.

“At least I didn’t try to punch you,” Ezri says, trying to make a joke of the whole thing to lighten the mood. “I’m sure there are a few people back at the commission who are cursing me for breaking their noses.”

Lenara doesn’t laugh. “I’m sure there are.” Her hand starts stroking through Ezri’s hair. Ezri isn’t certain she’s even aware she’s doing it. “It’s just… it’s hard to think of Jadzia, hard to remember what happened. Especially with you so close. You know you could be her little sister, you look so alike.”

“I know.” Ezri has seen the files of all the previous Dax hosts (even Joran’s) and she’s uncomfortable with her physical resemblance to Jadzia. She hopes no one expects her to be like Jadzia in other ways; brilliant, intelligent, determined. Ezri is more small, confused and lost. She could never be like Jadzia.

“You’re wrong,” says Lenara, and Ezri realises she was thinking out loud. “You have access to everything that Jadzia was, or could have been. You can take that experience, that knowledge and be better. That’s the whole purpose of joining after all; to become something greater than yourself, to be something greater than you would have been on your own.”

But Ezri never wanted to be joined. She was happy as she was.

She doesn’t say this out loud though, instead opting to change the subject. “Tell me about her,” she says. “Jadzia, I mean. I have her memories but I want to know how you saw her.”

Lenara is quiet for a long time after that and Ezri watches as a number of different emotions pass over her face. In turns she looks happy, sad and conflicted, finally settling on bitter sweet.

“Jadzia was… my equal, in every possible way,” she says at last, voice hoarse with emotion. “She was brilliant, far too clever, incredibly funny and beautiful to boot. How could I not fall in love with her?”

“I remember her saying the two of you were a much better match than Nilani and Torias ever were.”

Lenara managed a smile. “She was right. Torias and Nilani loved each other fiercely but… Nilana should probably never have married a pilot. And Torias shouldn’t have married such a level-headed homebody.”

“He was hoping she’d mellow him out a bit,” Ezri mumbled. “It didn’t work in the end.”

“No it didn’t,” Lenara says, and the shadow of old pain passes over her face. “Jadzia though… she was perfect for me. We were both scientists, could talk endlessly about quantum mechanics or warp theory of advanced xenobiology with a kind of passion I’d never known. And she was so giving, so loyal and so fiercely protective. She saved my life that day on the Defiant.”

“I remember,” Ezri says in a small voice. “I– She was terrified of losing you, and what you had together.”

There are tears running down Lenara’s face, and Ezri can feel an answering prickle in her nose; she’s not far behind on the crying front.

“In the end though I was a coward,” Lenara continues, her voice tight and controlled despite the tears. “I walked away from one of the best things that’s happened to me in more than ten lifetimes.”

“You chose to put your symbiont first. There’s nothing wrong with that,” Ezri says, but her hands are shaking. She remembers very vividly the hurt Jadzia felt when Lenara left, remembers how long it took for her to get over it. If she’s honest with herself she’s still not over it, one husband and one death later. “You did what we’re all supposed to do.” Ezri feels strange, talking about ‘we’ and ‘us’, counting herself among joined Trill, but for better or worse that’s what she is.

“I know,” says Lenara, and now her hand is wrapped around Ezri’s bicep, her grip tight enough to be almost painful. “Jadzia thought I was worth risking everything for though, and for a moment I thought she was worth it too. And then I panicked, and walked away.” Her voice cracks and she goes quiet.

Lenara is still stroking Ezri’s hair with one hand, her other still holding onto Ezri’s arm. Despite the emotional turmoil roiling around in her chest Ezri feels almost relaxed. She feels safe here, in Lenara’s arms. Jadzia felt the same way.

“I never really got over it,” Lenara says quietly sometime later. “I never got over Torias and I am still not over Jadzia. I’ve often wished I’d been braver, that I’d taken that chance with her and damn the consequences.”

Ezri’s heart pounds in her chest. The part of her that is Jadzia is screaming at her to say something, to confess undying love for the woman in bed with her but she manages to reign it in. She’s not as much at the whims of her previous hosts as she was just a few days ago.

Her heart hurts for the lost possibilities.

“She often wished you’d taken that chance too,” Ezri admits. “Even after she was married she would think of you and what might have been.”

“Was she happy at least?” Lenara asks, and there’s such earnestness in her voice that Ezri nearly starts crying again.

“Yes,” she says simply. Because despite everything Jadzia _was_ happy in the end.

“Good, I’m glad.” Lenara gives a rueful chuckle. “I should never have accepted that assignment in the first place, not knowing she was assigned to _Deep Space Nine_. I’ve known for over a century that Daxes are nothing but trouble but I’ve never been able to resist their charms.”

“And now you have another one in your life,” Ezri says, trying to pull out of Lenara’s embrace a little bit. “Sorry about that.”

“I should have turned you away from my doorstep once I found out who you were, but I don’t regret not doing so. As I said; Daxes are something of a weakness of mine.”

Ezri isn’t sure how to respond to that, so she doesn’t say anything. The next thing she knows Lenara is drifting off to sleep, still in bed with her, and she’s not long for slumber herself. She just about manages not to press another kiss to Lenara’s temple and snuggles down into the covers.

When Ezri dreams that night, it’s not taken from the memory of one of her previous hosts; tonight her dreams are all hers.

She and Lenara are in bed, limbs tangled together.

They’re both naked.

Their skin is slicked with sweat from their exertions. Ezri can taste the salt on her tongue, smell Lenara’s arousal (that she remembers from that one blissful night with Jadzia). She is dizzy with want, and the noises of pleasure Lenara makes as Ezri kisses her way down her neck only drive her wilder.

“Can’t get enough of you,” Ezri pants, taking a pert and perfect nipple into her mouth. She sucks gently at is, caressing it with her tongue and just grazing with her teeth. Lenara makes a noise that is almost a howl and rakes her nails down Ezri’s back; there will be scratches there tomorrow but Ezri doesn’t care.

She sucks harder, revelling in the way Lenara’s moans change pitch and her nails dig harder into Ezri’s back.

“Please,” Lenara pants, “please.”

Ezri lets Lenara’s nipple slip out of her mouth. “Please what?” She moves her attention to the other breast.

“I need you,” Lenara, says, gasping for air. “Please, inside.”

Ezri allows a wicked grin to take over her face. “Since you asked so nicely…”

She kisses her way down Lenara’s stomach, ever so slowly, enjoying the way the muscles underneath twitch towards her mouth.

“Please,” Lenara says again, and her tone is urgent. As much fun as it might be to prolong this, to continue the tease a little while longer, Ezri knows her lover can’t take much more of this pleasurable torture.

She slides her hand lower, watching the sheer bliss creep over Lenara’s face. She’s so beautiful it makes Ezri’s heart hurt; she never wants to be anywhere else but in bed with this woman, making love to her. Making her scream with pleasure.

Ezri never gets to find out what that sounds like. She wakes up with a jolt, her body thrumming with arousal. Lenara is wrapped around her, fast asleep, and Ezri can feel the heat of her skin seeping through their night clothes.

It’s not helping in the slightest.

Lenara stirs, rolling over to face Ezri as she wakes. Ezri doesn’t quite manage to school her expression in time and Lenara blinks in surprise as she catches the look of unguarded want. She feels her cheeks heat in embarrassment and looks away, turning over so Lenara is looking at her back. For her part Lenara says nothing, and she doesn’t retreat quite as quickly as she had the previous morning.

She does, however, climb out of bed almost immediately, and breakfast is almost as tense as it had been the day before.

Other than that the day goes well. Ezri has a better handle on who she is most of the time, and can stave off any intrusive memories before they become overwhelming. Despite the awkwardness of their wake up call, Lenara is pleased with Ezri’s progress, and tells her as much. It’s high praise, and Ezri revels in it.

She knows only some of it is down to her though; Lenara seems to be something of a stabilising influence. She’s not sure whether it's due to the memories of two of her previous hosts or something about Lenara herself. Ezri finds she doesn’t mind what the answer is, all that matters is that she’s doing better and is no longer in as much danger of rejecting her symbiont.

With her personality more stable Ezri gets the chance to get to know Lenara as herself, and Lenara gets to know Ezri rather than an echo of Torias or Jadzia. They find that, despite their wildly different lives (this host around anyway), they get on well.

It’s the best day either of them have had since Ezri turned up on Lenara’s doorstep.

That evening, when it’s time for bed, Ezri decides to take a chance. She sleeps well with Lenara in her arms, and sees no reason why a little early morning awkwardness should put a stop to that.

Unless, of course, the awkwardness is too much for Lenara to deal with, and she doesn’t want to. There’s nothing to be lost by trying though.

“Stay with me tonight,” Ezri implores before Lenara can settle herself on the sofa. “I sleep better with you there, and the nightmares aren’t so strong.”

Lenara looks conflicted; twice they’ve shared a bed and twice they’ve woken up to awkwardness courtesy of Ezri’s past lives (although Ezri knows this morning was all her, Lenara doesn’t; they simply haven’t discussed it). She hesitates just slightly, and Ezri is convinced the answer will be no.

“Alright,” says Lenara, taking Ezri completely by surprise. “I– I’ve slept well the past two nights as well.” There’s a slight flush on her cheeks, as though she’s embarrassed by the admission, but Ezri’s heart soars.

“Great,” she says, grinning broadly.

They settle into bed, Lenara wrapping herself around Ezri and pulling her close. Ezri feels safe in her arms, like nothing in the universe could possibly hurt her when they’re together.

She drifts off to sleep with a smile on her face.

Ezri is exhausted; it’s been a harrowing trip and it is far too long since she’s been home. Starfleet is all well and good, and she knows she’s doing good work out here, but she misses _home._

She misses her wife.

Who she’ll get to see for the first time in eight months in just a few short moments. Her stomach feels like it’s full of _gagh_ even though she hasn’t had any in years.

When she finally sets eyes on Lenara she nearly faints with relief.

Her wife launches herself across the spaceport, heedless of any other passengers in the way. Ezri sobs as a pair of familiar arms wrap around her and hold her tight. She drops everything she’s carrying to return the gesture.

“I missed you,” she chokes into Lenara’s neck.

“I missed you too, _Lieutenant Commander,_ ” Lenara replies, emphasising the rank. She pulls away so Ezri can see the pride written all over her face.

Ezri grins. “You like them then?” she asks, gesturing at the two solid pips and one empty pip on her collar.

“They suit you. I knew you could do it, and it’s about time they gave you that promotion; you’ve been practically running the counselling service on the _Yorktown_ for over a year.”

Ezri feels her smile widen. “Come on, let’s go home.”

The scene shifts.

Lenara is sat at the table in their kitchen, working on her latest paper. The table is completely covered with more padds than Ezri realised they owned. Her wife has an adorable furrow in her brow as she concentrates. Lenara’s been at it too long though, and she needs a break. Ezri crosses over to the replicator and orders two teas, taking a sip from one and depositing the other on the tiny bit of free space at the table.

Lenara finally looks up from what she’s doing. “Thanks, love,” she says, reaching for the mug.

Ezri bends down and presses a kiss to her cheek. “Any time. You almost done for the day?” Lenara leans back in her chair, surveying the mess in their kitchen as she massages a kink out of her neck.

“Almost. I have a few more paragraphs to write in this section and then I can stop.” She looks at Ezri ruefully. “Sorry I’m spending so much of your shore leave working.”

She shrugs. “It’s alright. I knew what I was getting into when I married you, and so did you. I’m here and I get to see you, that’s what matters.”

Lenara smiles at her. “What did I do t deserve you?”

“I dunno, but it must have been good,” Ezri shoots back, grinning into her mug. Lenara’s lips twitch with amusement. “If you finish up quickly I’ll give your neck and shoulders a massage for you, they look sore.”

Lenara raises an eyebrow at her wife. “Just my neck and shoulders.”

“Hurry up with your work and find out,” Ezri says with a smirk. As she sweeps out of the room she sees Lenara start tapping furiously at her padd again.

It’s amazing what a little incentive can do.

When Ezri wakes up the next morning she’s not aroused, and she knows who she is right away, but her heart aches.

Her dreams might not have been violent or erotic, but they were no less intense for it. There’s a lingering happiness she feels from the dreams, and with Lenara gently snoring at her side it would be easy to pretend that everything she dreamed of is real.

But it isn’t.

She and Lenara aren’t married, aren’t even lovers, and can never be. It’s more than just a question of whether Lenara feels the same way, even if she does there’s no future for them together. Reassociation is forbidden, and while Lenara considered going against Trill society and Symbiosis Commission rules for Jadzia she probably wouldn’t for Ezri.

And even if she would, Ezri knows she wouldn’t let her. She might not have wanted to be joined, but now she is she takes the responsibility seriously. She doesn’t want to be the last Dax, and she doesn’t want Lenara to be the last Kahn. So, she knows the dreams she had can never come to pass.

That doesn’t stop them from following her through the day.

Ezri can’t seem to get them out of her mind, and she knows Lenara can tell something is wrong. There had been no awkwardness when Lenara woke up that morning, Ezri was careful to ensure that, but there is now. Ezri holds herself differently, speaks more cautiously, and Lenara seems more worried now than when Joran threatened to make an appearance.

“Okay Ezri, what’s the matter?” she finally asks. “You’ve been off all day. Did I do something wrong last night?”

“No you did nothing wrong,” Ezri says glumly, “just… my dreams again.”

Lenara’s face becomes concerned. “Did you have another nightmare? You should have woken me.”

“No, it wasn’t a nightmare.” Ezri sighs. She going to have to tell her. “I dreamed– well I dreamed of us.”

“Of us?”

“Having a life together, all happy and domestic.” Ezri lowers her gaze. “I dreamed we were married.”

“Oh,” says Lenara. Her expression is unreadable and Ezri panics.

“It’s not– I’m not saying that that’s what I want, I mean, it was just a dream right? And I don't even know if you’d want that too and it doesn’t really matter in the end because we’re both joined and there are rules and stuff. And I know you considered breaking them for Jadzia but I’m not her I’m, well, me and well I just–”

Ezri realises she’s babbling and cuts herself off. She embarrassed, both by her admission and by outburst, but Lenara doesn’t say anything. She has a shocked sort of look on her face and she is so so beautiful. In that moment Ezri would given anything to be able to kiss her, and then something occurs to her.

Why do they have to think in the long term?

She swallows, hard, hoping she has enough courage to say what she wants to say next.

“I mean… I don’t know how you feel Lenara, but I want you. I want you so much I can’t breathe sometimes. Is there… any chance you might feel the same way?”

Lenara’s gaze darkens. “I can’t deny that I’m attracted to you, but–”

Ezri holds up a hand to silence her. “No, wait, just hear me out.” Lenara squares her jaw, but nods her agreement. “I’m not saying we throw away our whole futures, but why shouldn’t we have _something_? A few days together, while I’m here, and then I go back to the Symbiosis Commission and they’re none the wiser.” Ezri shifts nervously. “What do you think?”

Lenara looks stunned. “And you think you’d be able to do that? Just walk away at the end of it, no hard feelings?”

“I don’t think I could ever harbour hard feelings for you, Lenara,” Ezri says softly. “But yeah. I’m not saying it won’t hurt but I can walk away at the end of this, and I know you’re strong enough too. And we’ll have a few precious memories to pass on to our next hosts. I want something with you, Lenara, and I would much rather have this than nothing at all. But only if you feel the same way.”

Lenara is quiet for some time after that, clearly thinking. It’s not an easy decision to make, Ezri knows. There’s a part of her that’s hurting for even making the suggestion, but she doesn’t regret broaching the subject with Lenara. Even though Jadzia had been hurt when she walked away and left her on DS9, the memories now are far more sweet than bitter. Ezri wants that. She can only hope Lenara does too.

“Okay,” says Lenara, looking Ezri in the eye.

“You want this?”

Lenara nods. “My feelings for you, for Torias, Jadzia, have never gone away. And you’re attractive Ezri, and so strong. Over the last couple of days I’ve watched you overcome something that should have beaten an untrained Trill, and yet you’ve conquered. You’re more amazing than you know and I want this, with you.” She laughs, and this time it is wry rather than empty. “Besides I told you; I never have been able to resists Daxes.”

Ezri smiles, her heart feeling lighter than it has in weeks. She can feel that Jadzia and Torias are pleased too, and the rest of her previous hosts all seem to be in harmony for once. She wants this, with her whole being, Ezri and Dax and all the previous hosts. And Lenara wants it too.

“Do I get to kiss you now?” Ezri asks hopefully. Lenara smiles and nods.

The next thing Ezri knows she’s pulled Lenara flush against her front, kissing her hard. She tastes even better than Ezri thought she would. A moan escapes her throat and she hears an answering noise from Lenara. Any doubts Ezri had that Lenara might not want this go right out the window.

Her skin feels hot, like she’s on fire, burning with desire for the woman in her arms. They kiss and kiss and kiss, opening their mouths to press closer, deeper. Ezri feels like she’s drowning. She knew she wanted this but she didn’t expect it to feel so _good_.

Ezri pulls her mouth away from Lenara’s and turns her attention to the sensitive skin on the other woman’s throat, caressing the spots there with her tongue. Trill spots are always sensitive, and the noise Lenara makes in response to Ezri’s ministrations makes her knees buckle.

She can’t get enough. She will never be able to get enough of her.

“Bedroom,” Ezri manages to get out, and Lenara nods, dragging the shorter woman along by the hand.

Their feet tangle as they hastily cross the room, unable to stay apart for very long. Ezri’s mouth seeks Lenara’s again, arresting their progress to the bedroom, and by the noise in Lenara’s throat she doesn’t mind one bit. The next thing Ezri knows her back is against the wall and Lenara is practically devouring her.

She returns the favour.

Hands scrabble with clothing and they manage to get Ezri’s shirt off, followed swiftly by her bra.

Then Ezri’s nipple is in Lenara’s mouth and she can’t think straight any more. Lenara’s moth is hot and wet as she sucks and bites and licks, using her hand to pinch the other nipple firmly between finger and thumb. Ezri is incoherent, babbling nonsense under her breath as spasms of pleasure shoot through her body.

She needs to touch Lenara, feel her skin against her hands.

Ezri pulls herself back from the edge and drags Lenara’s mouth up to hers again, fingers struggling with the bottom of her top. After a few moments of fumbling (and more than one frustrated growl from Ezri) she finally manages to divest Lenara of her shirt.

She isn’t wearing a bra.

Her breasts are even more amazing that she remembered.

Ezri drags her nails up Lenara’s now bare back, enjoying the hiss of pleasure this elicits. This isn’t enough, she can never get enough. She wants all of Lenara, and she wants it now.

Bedroom. They were supposed to be getting to the bedroom, Ezri remembers, her mind struggling to keep track of anything other than the delicious expanse of skin her hands now have free reign over. The wall is a lovely distraction but she wants them both naked and on the bed as quickly as possible.

She pulls Lenara along with her, mouth attacking her neck as she goes. They almost fall over a couple of times but finally Ezri has Lenara right where she wants her. She looks down at the woman in her arms, revelling for a moment in the flush of her cheeks, the untidy tangle of her hair and the way her pupils are blown so wide they almost looks black. Both of them are breathing hard and Ezri grins.

She did that.

“So beautiful,” she murmurs, caressing Lenara’s face with her hand.

Ezri doesn’t give Lenara a chance to reply before she bends to worship her breasts with her mouth. It’s even better than she remembered, better than in her dream. Lenara’s nipple is soft and smooth in her mouth, though it doesn’t remain that way for long, puckering and tightening in response to the caress of Ezri’s tongue. The taste of Lenara’s skin is intoxicating.

Lenara apparently has better control over her limbs that Ezri did when she was in this position, and her hands are far from idle. Ezri feels her tugging at her pants, and she shifts her hips to allow them to come off.

“Off,” Lenara says, tugging at Ezri’s underwear, her voice hoarse with pleasure. Ezri manages to pull her attention away from Lenara’s nipple long enough to help her with removing her panties.

And then Ezri is naked. Lenara is not, and that just won’t do.

“Fair’s fair,” Ezri says with a grin, tugging on Lenara’s pants.

Lenara rolls them over and stands up, pulling her own pants off and taking her panties with htem. Now they’re both naked and Ezri forgets how to breathe.

She already knew what Lenara looks like naked, but only through Jadzia’s eyes. Having Lenara here in the glorious flesh is another thing entirely, and Ezri knows she will never forget this moment as long as she lives.

Then they come crashing back together, Lenara laying herself flat over Ezri, trying to touch as much skin at the same time as possible. Ezri groans at the sensation, and renews her attack on the spots on the side of Lenara’s neck. Lenara shivers and moans her pleasure, even as she does her best to return the favour.

It isn’t long before they’re both shaking and squirming, legs tangled, skin sweaty. Ezri can’t remember the last time she was this blissfully happy, but she thinks it might have been a lifetime ago.

When Ezri settles herself between Lenara’s legs, licking and kissing and nipping at the sensitive flesh there, the smell of arousal thick in her nostrils, her mind goes entirely blank. For the first time since her joining there are no nightmares, no unwanted memories, nothing haunting from her previous lives. In this moment she is simply Ezri, making love with to Lenara with everything she has. She feels calm, centred, even as her heart thunders in her chest.

“Yes,” Lenara gasps as Ezri’s tongue traces over her clitoris. “Don’t stop.”

The thought never even crossed her mind. She has no intention of stopping now, and since Lenara has commanded her not to, she drinks her fill.

This time she gets to find out what Lenara sounds like screaming with passion. The memory of her name on Lenara’s lips as she comes will warm many a lonely night, Ezri already knows.

Lenara takes a few moments to recover while Ezri grins smugly and then it’s Ezri’s turn to scream with pleasure.

They take it in turns to bring each other to orgasm, resting a while to catch their breath each time, and the keep going until they’re both sweaty and exhausted, muscles aching with exhaustion.

Ezri’s mind is quiet. She is utterly herself here with Lenara.

If she’d known that a few hours of mind-blowing sex would work better than a few days of meditation and breathing exercises she’d have suggested it earlier. As it is she can’t begrudge anything; things happened how they happened and they’re here now, that’s all that matters.

“I love you,” Lenara says sleepily, burrowing into the warmth of Ezri’s body.

She likes this quiet intimacy, this ability to just _be_ with Lenara. It’s almost as good as the sex they’ve been having all day.

“I love you too,” Ezri replies quietly, pressing a kiss to Lenara’s temple as she drifts off to sleep. “I love you too.”

For the first time since her joining, Ezri slips into a dreamless sleep.

The next few days are utterly blissful for the both of them.

Lenara stays at home, though she picks up some work again. She spends her days reading papers and reports and replying to messages from her colleagues. Ezri does her exercises and reads a little, able to concentrate for the first time since she received the Dax symbiont. Much as in her dream she makes sure Lenara remembers to eat and brings her cups of tea every few hours.

It’s all very domestic and Ezri loves it.

Her joining seems to have stabilised and she no longer has issues with her identity, no more hallucinations, no more feeling out of control. Though she occasionally wakes up unsure of which host she is and what her pronouns are, the confusion never lasts more than a few seconds, and there are no more awkward incidents. She still replicates food and drink she doesn’t care for, thanks to a previous host’s affinity for whatever the item in question is, but Lenara assures her that’s something a lot of joined Trill go through and should also go away with time.

Given her circumstances Ezri is doing extremely well, and Lenara tells her so. She also tells Ezri that she’s proud of her. Ezri in turn feels like she’s accomplished something. Her future no longer seems so bleak, and she feels very much at home with Lenara.

They spend a lot of time just enjoying each other’s company, sitting quietly together as they complete whatever task they’re working on.

Each night they share a bed, and in Lenara’s arms Ezri finally manages to get some rest. Lenara too confesses that she sleeps well with Ezri at her side.

Sleeping’s not all they do in the bed though.

There is an awful lot of sex in the following days.

Ezri discovers that she enjoys it when she things get a little rough, and her back ends up covered in welts and scratches from Lenara’s nails, her neck and collarbones and thighs dotted with bruises Lenara has sucked into existence. Her scalp is sore from having her hair pulled, and the wounds on her back sting when her clothing brushes over them, but she enjoys that. She enjoys the reminder of the hours they’ve spent making love. Besides, it’s nothing a dermal regenerator can’t fix.

She’s also discovered for one or two things about Lenara. For instance that she enjoys being filled and stretched just beyond her limits. Ezri has spent many wonderful hours with her working her hand inside Lenara, holding it there, giving her as much pleasure as she can take. It’s been an incredible exercise in intimacy and trust. It’s also resulted in some of the best orgasms she’s had in nine lifetimes.

It can’t last forever though.

“They’re still looking for you, you know?” Lenara says one morning about a week after they’d started sleeping together. “Sounds like they’re getting quite desperate.” She gestures at the computer terminal she’s at, where the local and planetwide news is scrolling.

Ezri winces as she reads the page. The Symbiosis Commission do indeed seem quite frantic. There are hourly alerts popping up with her picture, and there’s even a reward for any information leading to finding her (though what that reward might be in a cashless society Ezri has no idea).

“You’re not thinking of turning me in, taking the reward for yourself?” she raises an eyebrow playfully at Lenara, but inside she’s worried. She knows she’ll have to go back eventually but she’d rather it were on her own terms.

“No I won’t turn you in,” Lenara says with a sigh. “And as much as I’d like you to stay a bit longer you really should think about going back. Dax is an old symbiont and the Commission don’t know you’ve been working to stabilise the join. For all they know you’re dead in a ditch somewhere and they’ve just lost a valuable symbiont from the program.”

“I know,” she says. “I really do. You’re just kind of hard to walk away from.”

Something dark passes over Lenara’s face and Ezri knows she’s misstepped. “We agreed that this wouldn’t be forever, that it would only be short term.” She sounds defensive and Ezri knows she has to work quickly to defuse things.

“I know, I was the one to suggest it, remember?” She bites at her fingernails, a nervous tick she’s picked up from Tobin and can’t seem to shake. “I’m not suggesting we draw this out, not in the slightest it’s just… knowing I have to leave you sometime doesn’t make it any easier to think about leaving you _now_.”

Lenara’s face softens and Ezri knows she’s not in trouble. She sighs, and it sounds like it rattles right up from her booted feet. “I don’t exactly want you to leave either, but you’ve been missing from the Commission for more than ten days now. You should put them out of their misery sooner rather than later.”

Ezri bites her lip. “Tomorrow. I'll go back tomorrow. Let’s have one last day together, and make it as good as possible. What do you think?”

Lenara’s eyes are shining and Ezri thinks there might be tears in them, but nothing falls. “I think that sounds wonderful.”

By unspoken agreement they adjourn to the bedroom.

They spend hours just kissing, holding each other tightly, breathing each other in and memorising the sounds, the scents, the sensations. This is all they’ll have to last them a lifetime and they want to make it good.

When they do eventually make love, the urgency of previous days is gone. Instead they are slow, gentle. They take their time arousing one another, moving on from their languid kisses very tentatively. Ezri moves from Lenara’s mouth to her neck, as she has done so many times before, but instead of biting and scratching she kisses gently, mouth closed, enjoying the slight hitch in her partner’s breath each time she presses her lips to skin.

Ezri kisses her way down Lenara’s body, from temple to ankle, following the pattern of spots on her body. Lenara returns the favour, and Ezri can hardly breathe when Lenara’s lips graze over her hip bones. Their hands are careful, gently as they touch each other, and when they finally come together its with desperate little cries.

They fall asleep in each other’s arms for the last time.

When Ezri wakes up the next morning Lenara is looking at her, eyes roving over the face as though she’s trying to print every millimetre into memory. The tears finally fall then, and Ezri moves to comfort a sobbing Lenara.

“Shh, shh,” she says, feeling the burn of her nasal passages that warns her own tears aren’t far away. “It’s alright. You’re okay.”

“it’s not fair!” Lenara cries, desperately clinging to Ezri. “Damn the Symbiosis Commission and their damned rules on Reassociation. I wish you didn’t have to go.”

Ezri wishes she didn’t either, and she finally allows herself to cry. She mourns the life they could have had together, the life they could still have if they were willing to risk exile and the deaths of their symbionts. As much as it hurts she knows neither of them are willing to risk that. They’ve chosen to make a hard decision, chose it right from the beginning, and it wouldn’t do to back out now.

“I know, I know,” says Ezri, tears streaming down her cheeks. She’s all snotty and gross and imagines she looks horrible, but Lenara doesn’t seem to care as she peppers frantic kisses all over her face. “You can do this, I know you can. You’re strong, so strong.”

Lenara sobs incoherently, though Ezri catches something about Torias and Jadzia in amongst the nonsense. She knows Lenara doesn’t really mean it. Emotions are running high, and they both need to cry it out, get it out of their systems. They’ll both feel better afterwards, Ezri knows that, but as with everything about this situation that doesn’t make it any easier to bear in the meantime.

Eventually they’re both cried out and they just lie there, clinging to one another like a life line. Lenara looks at Ezri and she catches something in her eye, some spark she recognises from the past week.

She know what will happen next.

Lenara lunges for her with none of the gentleness of the previous day. Ezri finds herself responding, arousal igniting between her legs. Everything between them is fire, skin burning on skin as they come together one last time.

They tear into each other, fucking each other so roughly its almost painful. Ezri knows she’ll have scratches and bruises for days, which will no doubt worry the Symbiosis Commission. She doesn’t care though; she’ll wear them as a badge of pride until they heal on their own. And every time she looks at them she’ll think about the woman she loves, the woman she’s loved for three lifetimes. The woman she loves enough to walk away from.

When they say their final goodbyes on the doorstep a few hours later, there are no tears. They’re both quiet, subdued. They’ve done everything they possibly can, said everything there is to be said.

Well, almost everything.

“I love you,” says Ezri, cupping Lenara’s jaw. “I probably always will.”

Lenara manages a smile, but it is bittersweet. “Me too. You’re hard to get over, Dax,” she says, and for the first time the use of her joined name doesn’t throw her off balance. “Stay in touch this time, will you?”

Ezri is surprised by the request. She thought they’d agree on a clean break. “You think you’ll be able to handle that?”

“No,” Lenara admits, “but I want it anyway. Just… send me a litter every now and then. Let me know ho you’re doing.”

“I will. I promise.” She presses one last kiss to Lenara’s lips and leaves before she bottles it.

Outside for the first time in over a week, Ezri takes a deep breath. The fresh air is good, and somehow it smells cleaner, tastes sweeter than it did a week ago, even though she’s still in the city. She flags down a hovercar to take her back to the Commission. The driver looks at her strangely, probably because she’s a highly sought after fugitive, but he doesn’t say anything.

Back at the Commission building she announces herself at reception and the receptionist almost falls out of his chair. He scrambles to alert her medical team, who arrive promptly and whisk her way for a battery of tests.

When they’re satisfied that she and Dax are both completely healthy and the joining has stabilised, only then do they shout at her.

“What the hell were you thinking, walking out in the middle of the night?” Doctor Renhol yells at her. Ezri takes is in her stride, face stoic; she’s been expecting this. “You could have _died_ and then where would we be? Short one symbiont that’s where.”

“I know,” says Ezri, trying to project an air of calm. She’s not sure she’s succeeding; she still very much feels the urge to babble, and since that’s an Ezri trait not a Dax straight that’s probably not going to go away any time soon. “But I had to get out of here. The walls were pressing in on me and I felt trapped. Too many memories of this place from every one of my previous hosts for their training, not to mention what you put Jadzia through a few years ago. I had to get out of here, clear my head, try to sort things out on my own because while the isoboramine injections were keeping me from rejecting the symbiont they weren’t doing anything for _me_. I had to try on my own.”

Doctor Renhol looks deeply sceptical and she’s still frowning. “Well, whatever you did, it worked. You’ve stabilised the joining much faster than we predicted you would, and you seem to have full control over your past hosts and memories. We’ve done a complete physical and as far as we can tell, you’re completely healthy. I’ll notify your commanding officer that you’re fit for duty but I would still recommend you take another month or so away from active service.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” says Ezri, and she really means that. Now that she’s more or less sorted herself out she’s looking forward to getting back out there and helping people, making a difference. After all, she’s not forgotten there’s a war on. A horrible, brutal war that’s leaving thousands dead and just as many needing the services of a counsellor. She’s looking forward to seeing the universe again through fresh eyes, and through the filter of nine lifetimes’ worth of memory.

It should be interesting if nothing else.

“There is just one more thing,” Renhol says. “Do you want to tell us where you went, who you were with? I can’t deny the results in front of me but you had us all worried, dropping off the grid like that.”

Ezri smiles, remembering warm skin under her tongue and the simple bliss of giving Lenara a cup of tea while she’s working. “That’s my little secret, and I promise you, I’ll take it to my grave.”

Renhol looks irritated, but doesn’t press. “Fine. I expect we’ll want to keep you here another week or so for observation and then you’re free to go, Ensign Dax.”

“Thank you,” Ezri says, “for everything you’ve done. It might not always have been pleasant, but I wouldn’t be here without you.”

Doctor Renhol grunts and mutters something about Ezri being sappy before she walks out the door. She can’t help but laugh at the doctor’s expense.

Now that she’s no longer on the isoboramine supplements she’s been moved to a different room, one that actually seems fit for humanoid habitation. The walls are a pale cream (which is an improvement on stark white) the bed actually comfortable and she has access to the outside world via a computer terminal.

She decides to catch up on the things she’s missed over the last month or so. The war isn’t going so well, though it’s not going badly per se now that they’ve got the Romulans on their side. Ezri looks at the reports from _Deep Space Nine,_ which is still an important outpost. There she pauses.

Kira’s in command? She digs deeper. Benjamin took a leave of absence shortly after Jadzia’s funeral and returned home to Earth. Guilt twists in her gut; it looks like she’s not the only one who’s not been doing so well. She’s got some time after they let her out of here before she has to go back on duty, perhaps she’ll go visit another old friend.

Yes, she thinks, that sounds like a great idea.


End file.
